Reaver
by TallandLanky
Summary: A mass murderer is on the loose, and Jonathan Crane is released from Arkham Ayslum without Batman's knowledge. When Batman goes to investigate possible ties between Crane and the murderer known as Reaver, he gets more than he bargained for in the form of


**CHAPTER 1- Asylum**

The asylum is a dark place. In the daytime it is a living shadow pulling in the light like a black hole. Forbidding and dark is the place. Arkham Asylum, built of brick, red, like blood, dotted with rows of tall narrow windows that reveal nothing of the inside of the building and remain black as night; windows like howling mouths, screaming, but making no sound. The mouths cause discomfort to the casual observer and visitors are afraid they will be eaten; eaten but the insanity inside. Plain, geometrical, forbidding, shadowy and _alive_ is Arkham Asylum. It's like a black head rearing up from an island of death, the head of something trying to escape from Hades. Nobody wants to go here, to go among _mad_ people, even if only visiting. Patients here get no visitors. They're all mad here.

Batman couldn't believe what he was hearing, even though he had known it had been bound to happen eventually. He was inside Arkham Asylum, inside the head of madness, leaning on Dr. Jeremiah Arkham's desk and glaring at the crazy man in the chair. Everyone was mad here. Dr. Arkham leaned on one elbow and gazed at a pile of paperwork like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. Batman stood looming over him; a seething black shadow that looked like it was near exploding with rage. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"You, _what_?", Batman growled at the small eccentric doctor in his comfy leather throne atop his kingdom full of madmen. "I let him go, Batman," the doctor mumbled to his fascinating paperwork. Batman gasped, croaked, screamed and somehow managed to get words through his muting anger," You let Jonathan Crane out of this building?" It wasn't this fact that irked Batman so much, but the fact that Arkham didn't tell him that they were releasing one of Batman's most powerful adversaries _without his knowledge_ did. The fact that a dangerous criminal managed to be released without the press eating it up bothered him. The fact that Oracle, a friend, computer genius, ally and treasure- trove of information for his operations had neglected to tell him also bothered him. That meant that Oracle hadn't known Crane would be released, and it also meant that the only people who did know were the doctors at the Asylum and a select few in the legal system. They were keeping this quiet, and that bothered him; more than anything else.

No one had told him of Crane's release and now he had to go find Jonathan Crane on his own, starting from scratch. This involved computer hacking, database searches and the like. Oracle could do all of this with dumbfounding ease, but he didn't have time for it, not with a killer on the loose. He needed information and fast.

"I need to find him _doctor_!" Batman made the title sound like an insult. "If someone had told me he was being released," Batman said reasonably after controlling his irritation, "I would have been able to keep tabs on him and monitor his activities, which is what I _always_ do when an inmate is released." "And you want to know where he is", Arkham said, still not looking up at Batman. "Yes," The Batman confirmed. "Do you think I would tell you where he went and let you harass the poor man?" the doctor laughed.

"A poor man he definitely is not, Doctor. He's one of the most able psychiatrists and chemists in the world, and not to mention one of the worst criminals ever to taint Gotham's streets."

"And so?"

"It's part of the Asylum's duty to relocate him. Tell me where he is, where he went.

"No."

"I need information from him doctor."

Dr. Arkham was silent, obviously enveloped in his extremely interesting paperwork. The Batman didn't like to be ignored and he stood there for a second, waiting for Dr. Arkham to look up at him and acknowledge his presence. Jeremiah Arkham failed to comply and Batman slammed a black gloved fist on Arkham's dingy brown desk, at the same time yelling, "Where did he go!" The doctor jerked in his chair like he'd been shot and finally looked up at Batman. "_What_!" Arkham shouted. "What, _what?_" Batman snarled back at him. Dr. Arkham whined, "I was asking you to tell me what you wanted to say!"

"I don't have time for this!" Batman roared in a deep and overwhelmingly masculine voice, and with that, he was out of the doctor's drab and plain, sparsely furnished office, soaring over the Gotham skies, cape spread like wings.

The sky belched buckets of rain on Metropolis, clothing it in blankets of mist and the noises of children who are supposed to be in bed but are splashing in puddles. The noises of gutters swallowing the water the sky rains and the noises of cars hauling through the mess, splashing the wetness and leaving white ripples in their wake. The moon was covered and the city was lit only by its buildings and street lamps.

It was even darker in the sewers, and Poison Ivy didn't think she could stand it any longer. Buckets of water poured in every now and then, gushing through grates and adding to the already knee-high muck that Ivy, Harley Quinn and Joker waded through. Back at Arkham, Joker had decided to execute a fairly easy to accomplish escape plan exclusively with Harley. Harley was the one who pulled Ivy into the fiasco. Ivy didn't really care about Joker's mad plots, random crimes and things of that nature, but she tagged along because Harley was her friend and she wanted to make sure that Joker wasn't abusing Harley more than absolutely necessary. The maniac could be so rough sometimes.

Their escape plan had been fairly simple: stow away on Jonathan Crane's vehicle departing from Arkham Asylum. Ivy and Harley had escaped during their trip to the showers using Ivy's overpowering pheromones on two of the guards monitoring them. The pair had then stolen the uniforms, which got them as far as the warden near Harley and Ivy's cell. Earlier in the day, Harley had somehow managed to "obtain" a mind controlling card from that hopeless cretin who called himself the "Mad Hatter". Ivy snorted as she thought of the stupid little man's ridiculous alias. _Couldn't he do any_ _better_ _than making himself a reflection of an Alice and Wonderland character_, she thought absently. They used the card on the warden, then slipped past another set of guards and met up with Joker in the mess hall for the less troublesome patients.

Joker's escape was even simpler than Harley and Ivy's. He had watched and waited for over three months for this escape. One afternoon, three months ago, he had been given a stick of bologna for part of his lunch. Joker skipped out on _that_ part of the meal and hid the stuff under his cot. Now, just as Jonathan Crane was scheduled to be relocated, he remembered the bologna and pulled it out from under his cot; it was as hard as a rock. Literally. How convenient. He wondered why they had even served him bologna. It was almost like they _wanted_ him to escape! When his next guard came with his meal, he jumped on the opportunity, the guard being the opportunity. "EAT MY SAUSAGE!" Joker screamed at him and beat the unsuspecting man over the face with it. It turned out, to Joker's vast amusement, to be the same man who served him the bologna in the first place. He then looked down at his free hands, wondering idly how he had gotten out of his strait jacket. Shrugging, he moved on, stepping over the guard's unconscious body.

He made a quick stop at the room where the prison wardens kept confiscated items so that he could pick up his purple suit. It was a small dark closet-like thing, damp, complete with spider webs in the corners of the ceiling. Joker found his purple suit and Harley's red and black costume amid a pile of black clothes and a pointy hat. After identifying a long thin object as a mangled, twisted-looking broom, he picked it up and threw his suit and Harley's costume over one arm. Joker swung and twisted the broom through the cobwebs, gathering the spiders and sticky webs together on the head of the broom like cotton candy. He moved on, humming a tune of which he couldn't remember the name to himself.

On his way to the mess-hall, he passed the cell of an old chum of his. "Hey, Harv! How 'ya doin' buddy?" Two-Face scowled at him from his perch atop the bench in his cell. He seemed preoccupied to the Joker. The bipartisan man flipped a coin with his scarred hand and watched it land on the top of his good one. He seemed to make some sort of decision and yelled, "Guard!" Joker scowled back at him and slammed half of his face into the glass, sticking his tongue out and trying to make half of his face as ugly as possible by rubbing it and twisting the skin. "Hey Harvey who am I?" Joker taunted. Two-Face roared in rage and Joker passed on to his final destination.

Joker met up with Harley and Pammy in the mess hall during a loud raucous meal with a bunch of "less troublesome" inmates. "Puddin'!" Harley screamed in joy and jumped into Joker's arms, crumpling his recently ironed suit and her red and black jester outfit. "Miss me Puddin'?", she crooned. Joker's voice dripped with sarcasm, "You have _no idea_." Most of the guards hadn't noticed Joker on the way down to the mess hall. Well, except for one named Sam, whom Joker dragged along after him on a leash. "Where did you get _that_?" Pamela Isely asked, pointing down towards the whimpering guard. "Oh," Joker said with a fabulous grin, "I found him outsi-" Ivy interrupted him,"No! I meant the leash!"

"OOOOOooooooooohhhhhhh", Sam moaned, "Please… have mercy… let me go…" Joker cringed and turned his head towards Sam. _What bad behavior,_ Joker thought disapprovingly. "Down Sammy Boy," Joker crooned, smiling sweetly. Then he decided to kick Sammy Boy in the face. Sammy was a good dog, and he yelped. "You'll have to excuse him," Joker said apologetically to Harley, "He's yours now pumpkin pie." Harley squealed in delight while Ivy rolled her eyes and mumbled something. It was hard for Joker to hear, but she either had said "the man is a maniac" or "the mayonnaise almanac." Since the latter didn't make any sense, he decided Miss Oaky was complimenting him. "Thank You", he had smiled. Joker tossed Harley out of his arms and handed her Sam's leash. Sam attempted to stand, but Harley yelled in his face, "DOWN SAMMY!" That was more than enough to put Sam into submission. Joker's arms were still loaded, so he handed Harley her costume and slung his suit over his shoulder with as much dignity as one in a floppy strait jacket can muster. Then, the group moved on through the thick masses of inmates and towards the halls leading to the main gates.

The rest of the escape had gone rather successfully in Ivy's mind. The three had slunk past spotlights and guards with little difficulty. There were a few moments when Ivy had to whisper loudly at Joker to "get down" or other things of that nature, but other than the fool giving her trouble, there was no trouble from the guards. Ivy accelerated the growth of the plants near the walls and they provided adequate leverage for them to hop over to the other side. There, they waited for the designated vehicle to come and pick Jonathan Crane up from the Asylum. Luckily it was a van that came, and Harley, Ivy and Joker snuck into the back when the driver was away.

For some reason, Crane chose Metropolis as his destination, which disappointed Ivy. She was somehow attached to Gotham, even though there wasn't much green there. After that, they entered the sewers of Metropolis, taking tunnels under Lexcorp to get closer to Crane. _And why_, Ivy wondered, _are we doing that_? Earlier the clown had tapped Crane's phone line in his apartment (they had been following for three days now, donning disguises when necessary). Ivy hadn't pressed Joker for information. She didn't want to know too much about the Joker's dealings and was only sticking with Joker for Harley's sake. Maybe soon, she would be able to convince Harley to be independent and leave the "clown prince" to come with her. Ivy hoped Harley would see reason. The man wasn't good for her, so all Ivy could do was hope. Maybe soon…


End file.
